Angelica was a natural mink
Tonkinese cat dearly beloved of Mr. Wayne Carr, from the USA. When
Angelica died, Mr. Carr made a generous donation to my research
into feline coronavirus and feline infectious peritonitis (FIP).

Donations
for FIP research will be / were used for the following:

To buy the chemicals needed
to do the experiments to discover more about natural feline coronavirus
infection and FIP.

To follow naturally infected
cats and, with the help of their humans, eliminate this virus from
the cats. This will involve taking samples of faeces, saliva and
occasionally blood.

To perform post mortems on naturally
infected cats who have partaken of surveys or treatment trials and
to then cremate their bodies and return the ashes to the people
who loved them.

To do a properly controlled international study of different
FIP treatment protocols, (this will cost several thousand pounds
and I’d need to employ a veterinary PhD student to help with the work).

To assess available FCoV antibody tests so that the best can be identified for use in eradicating FCoV, and therefore FIP and to discourage the use of poor FCoV antibody tests.

To continue producing educational material to aid the eradication of FCoV, and therefore FIP.

Please
note my research involves only naturally infected cats, not experimental
cats or experiments on any other kind of animals.

Donations
so far have enabled the purchase of a PCR machine and -80oC freezer,
have funded a study on the effect of commercially available cat
litters against feline coronavirus. To read more about how I use
your money, download my newsletters:

Every so often, people ask
how to make a donation to FIP research. If you would like to
make a donation, you may now do so using PayPal.

Use this button
to make a donation in Pounds Sterling -

Use this button
to make a donation in US dollars -

Use this button to make a donation in Euros -

When you donate, please indicate
whether you would like your name to be added to the list of donors
(you might like to include your web site URL). Please tell me if
your donation is in loving memory of a cat who was special to you,
and whether or not you’d like his or her name mentioned on the site.

To put a memorial on the internet for a cat who has died of FIP,
please see the Orion Foundation web site's beautifully constructed and heart-rending
memorial pages.

Wayne Carr

Angelica

Melisa Johnston-Pratt

Pepper

Valerie Black

Wee Willie Wallace

Val MacQueen

Posie

Katja Jacob

Kalian the Fair

Lars and Andrea Klores

Piper

Renata Fernandes

Trojan

Laura Frazier

Magnum

Dorothy S. Dady

Matteo

Daniella Thompson

Minx

Laura Laff

Andy

Mr and Mrs Sutphin

Shelby

Rona Kennedy

Bruno

Dan Doty

Domino

Sue Startin

Evander

Nada and Karim Makarem

Zuki

Sue and Graeme Davison

Martouf and Khepra

Jean and Fred Kahan

Tommy Meadow (a human who loved cats and worked
tirelessly to raise funds for FIP research)

Funding for
FCoV/FIP research is very difficult to find and I am immensely grateful
to those generous individuals who have given what they can for research.

The sort of
projects I would like to undertake are:

to find a definitive FIP diagnostic test

to
examine the immune response closely to determine the best intervention
for vaccination

to find a therapy to help cats stop shedding
FCoV

to
conduct clinical trials of possible cures for FIP

to
conduct clinical trials for a possible preventative of FIP in
healthy infected cats

I refuse to
experiment on cats, so all my FIP research has been done on naturally
infected cats.

What have
I done with your donations and grants?

Cat litter
to reduce FCoV infection: funding
from this website enabled a comparison of cat litters for anti-coronavirus
activity, I found that commercially available cat litters had widely differing abilities to neutralise coronavirus in the laboratory - but would they make any difference in the field? Choosing a litter which had coronavirus activity and subjectively was assessed to track less than most litters, a preliminary study has recently been completed and a study in a cat shelter is about to begin to assess whether the litter can affect virus transmission in a real life situation.

Carrier cats: people whose cats were identified
as healthy lifelong carriers kindly allowed me to post-mortem the
cats when they died. I have been looking in the tissues of these
cats to locate the virus, this work is ongoing. I am grateful to
Fermin Simons of the University of Utrecht for his help and advice
in this. I am about to identify healthy shedder cats in a breeding household and begin attempting to help them eliminate the virus.

FCoV resistant
cats: the Orion Foundation
funded preliminary work looking at the genes which govern immunity
in the cat, this pilot study was published in the April edition
of JFMS 2004. On this occasion, no marker was found, though interesting
differences in the numbers of these genes was found in different
cat breeds.

Equipment - donations from the Angelica Trust have supplied a freezer and microscope, amongst other items, specifically for FIP research.

Research papers published so far which acknowledge funding from Angelica Trust Fund:

I would like to dedicate this website with
gratitude to the many people and cats who volunteered to be part
of my research surveys. I thank the many grant awarding bodies (see below) and individuals for funding
my research in the past and Su Startin and Loretta Bartolucci who, having already enabled the purchase of a splendid microscope, are currently raising much-needed funds for another freezer!Big thanks for recent superb donation to everybody on the Cat-lendar team: Ilaria Isaia for having the ingenious idea; Lorena Migliaccio who did the graphics; Cristina Cattania for taking care of the orders and to Barbara Fruschi who promoted the sales. And another huge thank you goes to Bengals Illustrated for a whopping donation summer 2009.

Thank you to the Devon Rex
Breed Club of America for a big donation in April 2006 and the
Siamese
and Oriental Online Club for raising money in June 2006! Thank you
Susanne, for your fundraising website, FIP Support, and the fantastic donations you made
in 2005 and 2006!

I am grateful to the Wellcome Trust, Cats Protection,
the Robert Daubney Fund of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons,
the Clinical Studies Trust Fund, the Feline Virus Unit for funding my PhD and previous studies of naturally-occurring feline coronavirus infection and FIP. I thank the
Morris Animal Foundation for funding a project to attempt to identify
unique markers of coronavirus infected cells. I am especially grateful
to Pfizer for a generous donation of $25,000 which enabled me to take
on an assistant part-time for one year (2004). I am grateful to the Winn Foundation for a grant which allowed 5 months
of research into carrier cats in 2003. I am also extremely grateful to
the Orion Foundation for moral support (thank you Mel Amundson and Pat Klein),
and for a huge donation of almost $13,000 in 2003! Thank you Orion! Many
thanks also to individuals and the Scottish, Northern Counties and Yorkshire
Cat Clubs who made donations in 2005 and 2003. Thank you to all donors
for your generosity. Thank you to Lorraine Twyman and the Norsk Skogkattring
for setting up an internet auction (see the lovely
certificate they sent).
Thank you Dorothy, for your wonderful contribution of getting people to
sponsor you during Lent. And last but not least - thank you to the anonymous donors - you know
who you are - who have been so very generous.